


Tuna Fish

by Chairman



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-27
Updated: 2012-12-27
Packaged: 2017-11-22 14:47:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/610990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chairman/pseuds/Chairman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aranea and Meenah are partners in crime in the criminal underworld, even though Aranea hardly knows anything about her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tuna Fish

**Author's Note:**

  * For [princessofmind](https://archiveofourown.org/users/princessofmind/gifts).



> Sorry if this turned out to be fluffier than intended.

“As it stands, do you remember the plan?”

“Sure do. Get in, make an unbereefable racket sos you can gets to nefloatiating with the big man.”

“And what are you not supposed to do?”

“Catch the eye of the other big man.”

“You mean the establishment. The police, if I may elaborate. The restaurant owner is privy to our cause, but if we make too big of a racket we’ll attract outside attention.”

“Catch likes catchin’ a fish, if you didn’t get that pun.”

“So make your mayhem contained, if you will. So please.” Aranea Serket tried to stay serious as her partner writhed around on her lap. “Leave Damara to me. And try not to break anything!”

“Aw come on Serket,” Meenah said. “You know I like you a halibut more than I hate Megido, and I hates her somefin awful. I’ll be good.” She sat up and nudged Aranea with her head like a dog. 

“Do you remember why we’re going to Damara in the first place?”

“Sure,” Meenah lied. “We’re swimmin over there because so-and-sos got the scoop and this-and-that, and Megido’s lookin to shell that juicy tidbit to the highest buyer.”

“Which hopefully is us. But if you recall, Damara Megido has a tendency to be contrary, which may have been due to the incident where Rufioh Nitram came to her with…” As Aranea entered into Informatic Phase, which she often did, Meenah tuned out and just watched her cerulean lips move, and imagined kissing them the night after the job was done. She often thought about Aranea that way, but it wasn’t ever anything serious. Meenah Peixes did not go fly-fishing for ladies, and had no intention of baiting Serket to anything past their current arrangement. Which, given everything, was pretty comfortable. 

They had met a sweep ago at a local [sand] bar. This was back when Serket was still fresh off the Respectable Occupations boat, and, while talented at reading her clients, was unused to the environment and thus got caught up in the middle of a pre-existing feud. Meenah, of course, was already there, having run away from heiresshood at a tender seven sweeps old. And, serendipity would have it, she was frequenting the exact same watering hole and leapt in heroically to save the poor young guppy. After that they made a pretty sweet reel. Aranea had the information, and made a pretty seadollar off of being at the right place at the right time, and Meenah had enough muscle to cover them when things got hairy. Or spiny. 

Yeah, everything was fine; no need to go reeling off into some great confusing unknown over a few ripples.

***   
Aranea Serket grew increasingly more nervous the more steps she walked towards the restaurant. She took deep breaths and told herself to remain clam—calm!!—and tried not to look at the buffoon standing beside her.

It was unfortunate that Meenah, for all her love of gold and bling, did not have a fashion sense worth shit.

Aranea sighed and rubbed her temple. Surely nothing else would go wrong tonight, if she played her cards right. Damara was difficult to deal with, but they’ve done business before and if everything went to hell Meenah would be more than happy to obligingly hit Megido with her trident.

Which, of course, was the first problem.

“Must you bring that thing with you all the time?”

Meenah smiled, baring her teeth. “And what else would I be using to club these   
motherglubbers with?”

“Oh, I don’t know, a gun maybe? Or is that too barbaric, that we must first skewer them like shrimp? Oh, wrong analogy,” she said, as Meenah’s face lit up as it always did when she let a fish pun. 

“But seriously,” she said, yanking on one of Meenah’s braids to get her attention. “It would be highly preferential if you could look a little less, well, conspicuous.”

“What would that look like, hm? Trout me, I’ll be fine. Like an angler fish in the shadows, lurkin’ while you do your little nefloatsiatin’.”

“Well just—“

“I knows you’ll be fine, you’re good at talkin’ to people and stuff.”

“Um,” Aranea blushed. “Oh, well thank you.”

And there it was. That strange, creeping feeling of—what was that? Happiness? Strange and insidious, and altogether foreign to Aranea. She knew what Meenah thought, had known for a long time, but whenever she tried to talk to herself about her knowledge her head went blank. They had a professional arrangement, strictly speaking, and though Aranea could sense her staring, there were more important things to do than to worry about some awkward infatunation—infatuation—to be any concern.

She had migrated from reporting job to reporting job before properly entering the criminal underworld. There was more for her there than there ever was on the surface. Aranea loved information—especially the kind that must be pried for some man’s dead fingers. Of course, most newspapers that had some sort of repute about them would balk at publishing anything of that nature, and and they fired her, often immediately.

It was much better dealing in back corners. Here, Meenah was a godsend. She knew her way around all the fishy—er, shady—characters who frequented this brave new world. So what if the way she stares was mildly disconcerting, and her past a jigsaw puzzle of confusing references and vague remarks. A part of her itched to know what Meenah Peixes harbored (damn) beneath her clammy exterior (okay you’re not even trying, are you?)

Oh well. Tonight, there would be easier to reach information to obtain and profit from. 

Too bad that kind didn’t satisfy for long.

***  
Meenah lounged in the back, watching Serket and Megido talk, their voices fusing into gibberish she really didn’t care for. She eyed some of the restaurant’s clientele, making a list of those who looked suspicious and raising a pierced eyebrow at anybody who looked at her funny. 

This was the boring part. Of course, it did give her a first-rate viewing of Aranea Serket’s fine ass, complimented by her usual choice of frilly dress, making her look like some debutante out of Troll Leo Tolstoy’s novels or an equally stupid fairy princess. But the distance between them felt alien, some kind of Mariana Trench where it made Serket a faraway mirage, an unreal phantasm that was pleasant to the eyes but as insubstantial as foam.

It was much better when Aranea returned, when she gave instructions on the next place to hit and she was close enough to be real. There the dream becomes more intoxicating, Aranea Serket became corporeal once more, their relationship became something real, even if it was cluttered. Aranea adjusted her glasses.

“What do you know about Crocker Fishery?”

“Um what?”

Meenah snapped back into reality.

“The fishing estuary of the multi-branched corporate empire.” Aranea waved her hand in front of Meenah to regain her attention. “Apparently there is an opening in the backdoor to the paper disposal. Which means, if we can get past the guards, we’ll have a plethora of outstanding information concerning the company’s dealings.”

“Are you nuts?” Meenah said. “Do you know how big and powerful the Crocker Corporation is? We’d get incinerated in an instant. Or incrabserated.”

“Trust me, the information looks solid.” Aranea pulled out a small folder from a pocket. “There’s an opening tomorrow at midnight, I think it would be foolish not to go.”

***  
Aranea grossly underestimated the security of the establishment. The drones threw them out into the fish dumpster.

“I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you.”

“Naw, ‘sfine. Least they only’d throw us into the trash.”

“I promise I’ll listen to you if you have objections next time, and I promise to listen to what you have to say.”

“Mhm. Seaweed be doomed from the start.”

“What?”

“Seaweed. See we’d.”

“Oh.”

Aranea coughed and looked disdainfully at the fish heads crowding around her legs. “How many drones were there?”

“Bout a hundred. Lucky I remembered one of the passcodes.”

“Yes. So what are you, one of the heiresses or something? Because the passcode you used is only known to four people: the Imperious Owner herself, and the three heiresses. I…Oh my, I am so sorry.”

“What?”

“You’re the missing heiress, aren’t you?”

“It’s amazin’ how dense you can be, for all your smarts, Serket.”

Aranea groaned. “This is a disaster.”

“Okay look,” Meenah said, picking bits of fish out of her braids. “Stop carpin’ on what’s past. We can get out of this dump, avoid Megido for a while and then we’re finished.”

Silence. And then,

“So you were an heiress.”

“Serket, I’m nots in the mood for this.”

“But you never told me anything. Don’t you know how infuriating that is, to deal in information but not know a single detail about your history.”

“Oh what you really wants to know about me?” Meenah smiled. “Well once upon a time there was three heiresses to a company. And the oldest tried to usurp the current owner and then self-exiled herself because she realized there were better ways to get bling. The end.”

“And that’s it?”

“Well do you want to know more? Or do you think you can craft a better tail?”

“I could probably at least tell it better.”

“Fish tail, I mean.”

Aranea laughed.

What a way to get to know a person—in the middle of a night in a dumpter filled with tuna fish!

“So what’s the plan now, genius?” Meenah said as she hoisted herself out of the bin. She held up a hand for Aranea.

“Lie low until Megido forgets about this,” Aranea took Meenah’s hand and escaped the cemetery of rotting fish corpses. “There’s bound to be more information out there.”

They began to walk home. 

They did not let go of each other’s hand.


End file.
